Life in a Nutshell: A beer bottle, my teeth and a toddler

Combine all three of those elements at the same time and you get a perfect storm -- a confluence of bone, glass and enamel where the only loser is the one in my mouth.

That is why a couple days ago I was looking like a snaggle-tooth, with a chipped-out front tooth with a shard dangling down that would make a vampire coo.

A tooth is not going to win that battle.

I had been working in the yard all day, trying to break a world record for most sweat lost from a body. It was quitting time, I had showered and was feeling parched. So when you've lost 13 gallons of water and your blood is little more than sand coursing through your veins, nothing gets you re-hydrated quite like beer. Sure, you might die of sunstroke and dehydration, but you go out with a smile.

So I landed my drought-stricken body on the sofa to watch a soccer game. My little one decided to take up residence between my knees. And just like in a horror movie where no one thinks anything is amiss despite the blood-spattered chain saw, the snarling demon in the trash can and the old man warning that everyone is going to die, I didn't give this a second thought. Not with her little toddler head bobbing about as I took swigs, and certainly not when my wife approached to take a bow out of her hair.

Little Amelie's head jerked back like the arm of a medieval catapult just as I put the bottle up to my lips.

Wham!

And my tooth was suddenly shorter. The child's head? Fine. The bottle? Shoot, even the beer was still drinkable. Me? I was (at least in my mind) horribly disfigured. People who saw me later said they couldn't even notice. But I've always had nice teeth. And my teeth have always been in one piece. They work best that way. I don't chip them on ice or get into fights. I wore daggone braces too much of my life to let them get banged up. Yet, here I was looking like a gremlin.

And do you know how embarrassing it is to explain this one? First off, you sound like a derelict dad. There is no way to explain beer bottle, chipped tooth and head of a toddler without sounding like some kind of backwoods yokel. "So, there we were in the junk yard sitting on a rusty 50-gallon drum of gasoline drinking beer and smoking cigarettes while teasing a pit bull who appeared to be foaming at the mouth. That's when it happened."

I had to be careful as the sharp little shard was just itching to pierce my lip.

But I'm normal again. The dentist fixed me up. I don't know how they do it. It's like going to a paint shop how they match the composite filling so precisely to your yellow-stained teeth. I was disappointed when the tints were listed simply with letters and numbers, instead of fancier names like "coffee stains and grape juice" or "dirt and tobacco."

And as I sat in the chair while they sculpted me a new tip to my tooth, I gained a new appreciation for sharks. They don't need dentists. A shark's toddler chips one of his teeth and he has a dozen in line to take its place. How come they're more advanced than we are?

So I'm going to have to be more careful now. My days of taking baseballs to the teeth and gnawing on steel bars are over. I need to take care of my cap, and the rest of the crew. Don't want to lose any more. And just like recycling, I think it's time to keep the beer bottles and the toddler separated.